Quodlibet

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A quodlibet is a piece of music which combines several different melodies in counterpoint, usually popular tunes, and often in a light-hearted manner. A very famous example of a quodlibet is at the end of Bach's Goldberg Variations. Another example is Galimathias Musicum, a 17 part quodlibet composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart when he was about 10 years old.

More serious quodlibets can be found in the masses of Jacob Obrecht, which sometimes combine popular tunes, plainsong and original music at once.

There is also a song for four soloists and basso continuo by J. S. Bach, called the "Wedding Quodlibet" or just "Quodlibet" (BWV 524). It is not actually a quodlibet according to the above definition, but a ten-minute procession of nonsense, dumb jokes, puns, obscure cultural references, word games, and parody of other songs. At points the music imitates a chaconne and a fugue, and the music sometimes deliberately "mixes up" the choral lines. It is unlike any of Bach's other works, and a few scholars doubt it was written by Bach. It is probably the only work by Bach to include a farting noise.

The word also refers to a mode of academic debate or oral examination (usually theological) in which any question could be posed extemporaneously. Quotlibet debates were popular through the thirteenth century (1300s).

The term is from the Latin meaning: "whatever" (literally a compound word of quod (what) libet (pleases)".de:Quodlibet it:Quodlibet hu:Quodlibet pl:Quodlibet fi:Quodlibet